The invention relates to cable gathering apparatus for processing electrical or optical lines, such as wires, cables, line bundles, optical fibres, etc., including a platform that can be tilted downwards and that has an accommodating region for accommodating one or more lines after a processing step.
Cable processing devices are known in the prior art in which ready assembled cables are placed on a temporary tray of a cable gathering device (wire stacker) or discharged thereon and gathered there. When a certain number of cables are gathered on the temporary receptacle, the tray is tilted downwards so that the cables slip downwards from the tray in order to land in a container provided specifically for this purpose (removal trough) where they are accessible from outside the cable processing device.
The disadvantage of such a construction is that as a result of the cable dropping downwards from the temporary tray into a separate removal trough, the cable enters into a region that can ergonomically only be reached for an operator with some effort and continuously stooping, that is, in the region close to the floor. However, a corresponding height stacking of the tilting tray and the removal trough disposed thereunder requires construction expenditure.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,839,777A discloses such an apparatus. A wire guide assembly comprises a pivotable trough-like receptacle for wire bundles where the wire bundles can be released by tilting the receptacle downwards. The centre of gravity of the receptacle is in this case shifted outwards in such a manner that the receptacle can already tilt downwards merely due to the action of gravity.